And then I felt a soft hand take mine. And another, bigger hand take my other hand. I wasn’t alone. I opened my eyes and looked at the two of them. They couldn’t tell me what to do, but they were there for me.
I drew in a deep breath. I didn’t know what I was going to say until I said it.
“Prep her for surgery,” I told Krista. “Get Lina and Adele. Let’s do this.”
41
Colt
OUR CAMP was just that, a half-dozen tents pitched in a clearing, deep in the forest, along with some pickups and the van. We’d put a snow plow on one of the pickups so we could keep the backroads we used clear but we couldn’t do anything about the bitter cold. At night, the water would freeze in your canteen if you didn’t keep it in your sleeping bag with you. Sleeping on the ground, pissing in a latrine pit...we were living like savages. It hurt. It hurt bad. Time was, I’d have been lounging in a fat armchair by the fire with my feet up, a whiskey in my hand and an adoring wife by my side. The land I owned stretched so far, the boundary was out of sight.
They took all that away from me. But I was taking it back.
I bent down next to one of the bags from the bank and opened the zipper. As the light from the snow hit the contents, my face was bathed in a glorious yellow glow. Fifty. Million.
I’d rebuild. The CGF would be stronger than ever.
But only if I kept us pure. No dead weight. If someone screwed up, they were done. Mostly, they’d already been punished for their mistakes. Harry had already paid with his life. Max, who’d gotten all that razor wire around his leg, was likely crippled for life but, if he lived, I figured I could find a place for him as quartermaster or something. But there was one more source of weakness.
The other guys were sitting around the fire, desperately trying to keep warm, but I found Seth at the edge of the camp, pale and antsy and gazing down towards the town.
I fingered the knife on my belt and started walking towards him. He was too smart to run. I’d chased him down enough times, when he was a boy, pinned him to a tree and taken my belt to him. But he started to back away, keeping six feet between us.
“You had one job,” I told him. “Didn’t ask much. Just one thing.”
“I never asked to be part of this!”
I frowned at that. ‘Course he hadn’t had to ask. I’d let him have that honor, something any real man would covet, because he was my blood. “I told you to keep Isaac safe. Nobody else mattered.” My voice was loud enough for the other men to hear but I didn’t care. They all knew they might have to be sacrificed for the cause. “But instead, you were cozied up to that blonde with the big tits.”
“Don’t talk about her like that!” It was the first time I’d heard some fire in his voice.
“Is it because she’s a doctor? She remind you of that bullshit where you thought you were going to be one, and go work for the government? Where you forget where you came from?”
“No! I just—”
I drew the knife and it cut off his words as surely as if I’d sliced them out of the air.
“Isaac,” I told him, gliding the blade across my finger to test it, “was the one person we needed.”
Seth swallowed. “Please—”
“Without our pilot,” I grated, circling around him, “we can’t use the chopper. Without the chopper, we have no way out.”
He turned to follow me as I circled him. “Sir—”
“I need you to know how disappointed I am.” My voice was tight. “My entire plan could fail, because of you. The CGF could end, because of you.”
“Dad—”
I ran at him. I’d been slowly creeping forward as I circled, too gradually for him to notice. He tried to get out of the way, but, too late, he realized I’d tricked him into standing with his back against a tree. There was no place to run. Three quick steps and my knife went up and in—
Seth cried out in shock and fear.
“Damn you, boy,” I muttered. I was pressed right up against him, chest to chest. “Damn you to hell.” There were tears in my eyes, at the weakness.
Not his weakness. Mine.
I stepped back. I’d stabbed the knife between his body and his arm, burying the tip of the blade in the frozen wood. It was his eyes. He has his mother’s eyes.
I tugged the knife free, turned and walked away. “I got to go fix what you messed up,” I said.
His voice was shaky. “The hospital? You’re going there? No!”